Omni Parker House, Boston

Overview

As you pass through the sculpted bronze doors of this historic hotel, you are enveloped in the charm and timeless beauty that have made the Omni Parker House a Boston landmark since 1855. Located in the heart of Boston on the Freedom Trail, the Omni Parker House is a full-service upscale hotel featuring 551 guestrooms and suites, three dining options, and 23,000 square feet of event space. This luxurious hotel is the perfect blend of historic charm and modern-day conveniences, including 24-hour complimentary health club, 24-hour in-room dining, complimentary WiFi in all common areas, and a professional concierge staff.

As the longest continuously operating hotel in the United States, Omni Parker House has hosted every American President since Ulysses S. Grant. One has a particularly strong tie to the Omni Parker House, John F. Kennedy. He made his first public speech at the age of seven in the Press Room while attending his grandfather, Honey Fitzgerald’s, birthday party. The Press Room later became the place where he announced his candidacy for U.S. Congress and where he held his bachelor party. Parker’s Restaurant also holds significance for John F. Kennedy, as Table 40 is where he proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier.

The Saturday Club, a group of the brightest luminaries in American’s Golden Age of Literature, made the Parker House its home. Here Longfellow drafted “Paul Revere’s Ride,” the idea for the Atlantic Monthly was born, and Dickens gave his first American reading of A Christmas Carol. Other members of the Saturday Club included poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Greenleaf Whittier, novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Parker’s Restaurant is famed as the birthplace of the Boston Cream Pie, now the official Massachusetts state dessert, and Parker House Rolls, whose recipe was kept secret until 1933 when President Franklin Roosevelt requested it for a state dinner at the White House. The term “Scrod” meaning the “catch of the day” was also coined at Parker’s Restaurant.

Omni Parker House, Boston, a member of Historic Hotels of America since 2006, dates back to 1855.

At the Parker House, John F. Kennedy made his first public speech at age seven; announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate; held his bachelor party; and proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier.